Steal Your Heart Away
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Dean pays a visit behind Sam's back.


**Steal Your Heart Away**  
**K Hanna Korossy**

He was studying a poster showing the skeletal system of a fish when the door behind him opened. Dean plastered a pleasant look on his face as he turned around.

"Okay, Mr…Allen. My name is Doctor…" She finally looked up, and her head actually reared back a few inches in surprise. "Dean?"

Dean smiled tightly. "That's not what Sam called you." He raised an eyebrow. "You know who I am." He didn't bother making it a question.

"Besides Sam talking about you all the time?" Amelia Richardson, DVM, shrugged. "He had a picture of you two. Spent a lot of time looking at it."

"Oh." Somehow that hadn't been what he'd been expecting.

"So, I'm guessing you don't have a mouse named…" She glanced at the file she held in her hand. "Impala?"

"Uh, no. Not a mouse, anyway."

"Okay." She closed the file and dropped it onto a chair, and crossed her arms. "So what do I owe this visit to then?" A flash of realization, and her arms dropped their barricade. "Is it Sam? Is he—?"

"No, no," Dean put up his hands to stop her and, wow, this _really _was not going the way he'd expected. "He's fine. Well…" Mad at having been an angel vessel without his knowing, still a mess inside from the Trials, and furious at Dean, but… "No, he's okay."

She collected back some of her bravado. "Then what…?"

Dean took a breath. "Are you happy?"

Her eyebrows climbed into her hair. "Excuse me?"

Crap, he was really putting his foot in it. "I mean, I know you had a whole…thing with Sam, and then your husband came back and Sam left, but…" Her arms had come back up, her eyes narrowed, but he'd glimpsed the vulnerability underneath now and kept going. "…was that your choice? If Sam gave up our…job and showed up at your door, would you—?"

"…choose him over my husband?" Amelia gave him an incredulous look. "Are you seriously asking me that?"

Dean shut up.

She stared at him a moment, then huffed. "Not that it's any of your business," she muttered, and Dean blinked as she began to unbutton her lab coat. But unlike every naughty nurse video he'd seen, she had a sensible dress on underneath. With a small rounded bump in the middle. "Does that answer your question?" she asked acidly.

"Oh." She was pregnant. Dean didn't have to do the math to figure it definitely wasn't Sam's. "Oh!" Dean felt himself blush. He'd been an idiot. Again. "Yeah. Sorry. I'm just gonna…" He waved vaguely toward the door and took a step that way.

Amelia sighed, deflating. "Wait." Dean stopped, and she looked off to the side for a long moment. "Is Sam…unhappy?"

He thought of the anguish that rolled across Sam's face whenever Kevin came up, the nightmares Dean overheard, the livid and cutting words Sam had directed at him. Dean lifted his shoulders. "We're not exactly in the _happy _business."

"Yeah, Sam was always vague about what you did, too," she said speculatively.

He just offered her an enigmatic smile.

Amelia picked up the file and sank down onto the chair instead. "And you thought _I'd _make him happy?"

Dean pulled the other chair out to meet her at eye level. "He said he was happy with you." Or, well…something to that effect. Enough that he knew Sam had longed to go back. Enough that Dean was here, the last place he wanted to be, trying to find his brother a Plan B. Even one that cut out Dean's heart.

Amelia sighed, giving Dean another long appraising look before she began. "Sam…got better while we were together. He didn't look so lost; he smiled more. I guess we kinda helped each other find ourselves a little bit."

It shouldn't have hurt to hear; it wasn't like he wanted Sam to waste away in misery when he was gone. But while Dean had been struggling to survive in Purgatory, Sam had been finding his way with a pretty girl, and that couldn't help but lay salt in the wounds Sam had carved with his words.

"But." Amelia paused, and offered Dean a wan smile. "He was just…coping. Surviving. He wasn't _living_." Off Dean's confusion, she sat up and continued, "It's not like I knew him before. But it didn't take a doctor to see that Sam ate just to stay alive. He drank too much. His smiles always died so fast, and then you could see the pain again. And it never went away. I think I helped him forget for a few moments, helped him feel less…aimless. But happy?" Again that weak smile. "Sam was never really happy with me."

Dean sat back, head spinning. _I had no one. _Sam hitting a dog and ending up with a girl. _She does make me happy. _But then choosing Dean. Choosing to save the world and Dean. Talking about how good he finally felt. And that smile. The smile that lit his eyes and lingered, that said _my brother is an idiot, and I love him. _

Even furious, Sam had picked staying with him.

Dean finally nodded. "Okay. Uh, thank you." He stood. "And, you know, congratulations on…" He gestured at her bump.

She didn't stand with him, just looked up at him. "Dean? Do me a favor."

"Yeah, name it."

"Don't come back anymore, okay?" She wasn't looking at him anymore. "Either of you. Please. "

He huffed. "We can do that." A beat. "So…bye."

Dean was almost at the door when he heard her quiet, "Take care of him." He didn't answer her.

He didn't need to.

**The End**


End file.
